What is KAIMA?
Kaima, or "sustainability" in Aramaic, is a word that embodies society's collective obligation to preserve the environment and nurture the well-being of people across every generation.
An Idea Becomes a Movement
Amutat Kaima was established in 2013 with a mission to provide both long- and short-term, hands-on therapeutic and educational agricultural experiences for vulnerable populations and the general community. That year, Kaima opened the country's first social farm in Beit Zayit, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, creating a bridge between agriculture and youth who had not found their place within the traditional school system.
Our Financial Model
Unusually for a nonprofit, Kaima supports itself largely through self-generated income from farm sales and educational programming, alongside government partnerships and limited philanthropy. A key part of this model is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), a direct-to-consumer sales system where members buy a "share" of a farm's harvest upfront, receiving boxes of seasonal produce delivered to their homes. While CSA started to gain traction in Israel during the mid-2010s, Kaima revolutionized the framework by linking this sales platform to a profound social agenda: empowering people on the margins of society through worthwhile and consequential work.
Starting a Revolution
By engaging participants in daily agricultural activities, Kaima moved the classroom outdoors and transformed the traditional farm into a therapeutic, educational workplace that initially offered employment to the vulnerable youth it was founded to serve. The results were exceptional: more than 85% of Kaima's participants, ages 15 to 18, returned to conventional educational frameworks within a matter of months and did so armed with new pro-employment skills and an inceased sense of value and agency. Eventually, this nature-based approach was adapted for use with other populations, and today Kaima, whose first farm started as a jumble of boulders, leads Israel's now robust social farming movement.
To that end, Kaima operates on three levels:
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Direct services: Kaima provides direct services to vulnerable populations, including youth, young adults, IDF reservists experiencing the lasting impact of military service and their families, adults with developmental disabilities, and the community at large.
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Professional training: Through the Kaima Institute, Kaima trains educators, social workers, and other professionals, giving them new tools to bring into their own work.
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Policy and advocacy: Kaima advances the field nationally by promoting professional and regulatory infrastructure and engaging in policy advocacy to create the conditions for social farming to scale across Israel.
At the heart of this work is a simple principle: within a community that fosters positive and supportive relationships, each participant can learn how to reintegrate into daily life.
What Is Social Farming?
Farming Meets Care
While definitions vary, Kaima defines social farming as a practice that links local agriculture with educational, welfare, and mental health care services, harnessing the restorative power of nature and productive work to foster healing, growth, and community. Relying on best practices acquired over nearly a decade and a half, Kaima's programming taps into the life-affirming qualities of working the land to help improve the lives of people with special social, educational, and/or emotional needs.
The Farm as Teacher
Farming, and the pride that comes with growing—literally and metaphorically—is a highly effective vehicle to connect people who feel isolated to something healthy and meaningful. Its lessons resonate far beyond the confines of a traditional classroom. Over the years, we have learned how to use the farm to foster creativity, imagination, decision-making, and experimentation; to teach subjects such as civics, math, geography, history, critical thinking, and ethics; and to encourage mutual responsibility and, importantly for Israeli society, resilience: the ability to overcome obstacles, a process that requires time, strength, and interaction with others.
The Therapeutic Power of the Soil
The repetitive, straightforward rhythm of agricultural tasks—digging in the ground, carefully cultivating a plot of vegetables, unearthing root crops, or plucking fruit from a tree—can have a remarkable impact on well-being. Physical labor, together with the patience that farming requires, encourages people to draw on their personal reserves in ways that help heal trauma and reduce social isolation.
Strengthening Communities
At the macro level, social farming generates alternative social services that complement conventional therapies, job training, and educational outreach. Kaima's model promotes physical and mental health, social inclusion, and community engagement, while giving people a greater voice in their food systems and positioning them as local decision-makers.
Kaima Believes In...
Capacity for Growth
...the innate desire and capability of every individual to grow, improve, and transform their own life.
Intergenerationality
...breaking down generational hierarchies so youth and elders can trade wisdom, challenge biases, and build a more inclusive society.
Hands-in-the-Earth
...the grounding magic of tactile, muddy, real-world work to reach and rebuild those who are left behind by conventional educational and therapeutic settings.
Knowing Your Farmer
...consuming food where it is grown to create an efficient, energy-saving, and highly resilient local supply chain.
Curiosity as a Catalyst
...nurturing an inquisitive mind as the true engine of education and healing, shifting individuals from passive to active creators of their own personal destiny.
Frontline Farming
...the fact that small, community-based farms are vital to sustaining Israel's food chain and helping communities withstand crises such as war and pandemics.
The Kaima Network
Outskirts of Jerusalem
Est, 2013
Kaima’s prototype farm provides educational and therapeutic farming experiences for vulnerable groups and the public, while pioneering innovative programs to lead Israel’s growing social farming movement.
Lower Galilee
Est. 2016
Provides critical educational and social interventions for vulnerable youth and the local community, bringing vital resources to underserved parts of the immediate region and beeyond.
Jezreel Valley
Est. 2017
Initially founded as the first all-girl/woman-run farm. In the wake of October 7, the farm began to integrate boys into its feminist farming community.
Africa
Est. 2018
Empowers disadvan-taged rural youth through sustainable agricultural training. Drawing on Kaima’s "employment-as-education" model, programming combats poverty and unemployment.
Pardes Hanna
Est. 2019
Home to "Betwen the Furrows" Kaima's nature-based mental health care and resilience building programs for IDF reservists and their families.
In addition to the farms Kaima directly operates, we have also inspired many of the more than 40 social farms operating throughout Israel. Many have benefited from intensive mentoring through Kaima, with some receiving ongoing training. Future training will be facilitated through the Kaima Institute, our community-based agricultural and educational training center. Examples of farms whose founders trained in the Kaima methodology include:
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Meshek Lev Adam, an intergenerational farm located in Bat Shlomo operating under the jurisdiction of Hof HaCarmel Regional Council.
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Ruca’s Farm, a rehabilitative farm for the treatment of Israeli veteran suffering PTSD a operating under the jurisdiction of Sdot Dan Regional Council.
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Beerotayim Farm, formerly Kaima Beerotaim, an intergenerational farm located in the Sharon operating under the jurisdiction of Hefer Valley Regional Council.
Meet Our People
Amutat Kaima
Amutat Kaima spearheads Israel’s social farming movement--delivering direct services, professional training programs, and powerful advocacy.
Yoni Yefet-Reich
CEO
Irit Liberman
Deputy Director
Lauren Dellar
Diaspora Resource Development Coordinator
Kaima Institute (Machon Kaima)
The Kaima Institute provides the framework for the conceptual development and application of social farming in Israel. Operating as a living field laboratory for applied research, it develops shared professional standards, trains social farming leaders, and advances field policy and infrastructure.
Nomi Lifshitz
Director
Efi Toledano
Head of Sustainability & Growth
Dr. Gilah Amitay
Program & Evaluation Manager
Kaima Beit Zayit & Offsite Programming
Kaima Beit Zayit, our network's prototype farm, is driven by an exceptional team of young professionals. Combining expertise in education and sustainable agriculture, they instill personal pride and civic responsibility in our participants while building paths toward brighter futures.
Naama Gilon Arad
Project Manager
Ofir Carmel
Construction & Development Team Leader
Ella Koren Lifshitz
Customer Relations Manager
El Shabtai
Packing House Manager
Nadav Yudekovitz
Team Leader
Ron Abeles
Bustan Team Leader
Didi Malka
Professional Development & Mentorship
Inbar Lifshitz
Terrace Team Co-leader
Matan Sharabani
Agricultural Director
Guy Bar Navon
Director of Kaima Bein Hatlaim
Narkis Goharyan
Terrace Team Co-leader & Visitor Center Coordinator
Efrat Rubin
Social Worker & Intake Coordinator
Hallel Tal
Kaima Beit Zait Farm Director
Stakeholders and Partners
What do Kaima's stakeholders and partners have in common: Everyone has something to contribute, everyone is an agent of change.
Stakeholders
Vulnerable
Individuals
Kaima creates living environments on the farm for a range of populations: young people ages 15-18 disconnected from conventional educational frameworks, young adults ages 18-21 building independence as they step into adulthood, IDF reservists and their families facing the lasting impact of military service, individuals with intellectual disabilities, and others.
The Professional Community
Kaima creates resources for NGOs, educators, and municipal and government authorities, and offers an alternative educational experience recognized by the Ministry of Welfare. As the pioneer of social farming in Israel, we train professionals and farmers to adopt or adapt our methodology. The Kaima Institute serves as our living field laboratory for developing this knowledge.
The General Community
Our customers are an integral part of Kaima's community. By purchasing fresh organic produce and farm-made products, they support our programs while bringing more households into an eco-friendly lifestyle. Kaima also offers programming for the public on our farms, inviting community members to connect with the land, local agriculture, and the people who grow their food.
Partners
Philanthropic Supporters
Updates From The Field
Featured Blogs
Ha Gesher (The Bridge)The Bridge
Podcast showcases deeply personal conversations with men and women who served in Israel’s military and were exposed to shocking events. In this episode, Reserve soldier Shahar discusses his struggle with trauma following his service in Gaza and how Kaima’s “Anchored in the Earth,” led by Kaima's Guy Bar-Navon, is helping him to reach and “soften” his pain in ways that traditional therapy could not.
June 2025, Listen in Hebrew HERE.
Chicago Council on Global Affairs Podcast Series
Growing Pains: Transforming Global Food and Agriculture
One of Kaima’s brightest young stars is David Yacobi. In spring 2023, he spoke with Roger Thurow, Senior Fellow at the Center on Global Food and Agriculture and long-time Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent, in a podcast produced by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
In that episode, David and Roger discussed how youth engagement is critical to concerns related to how we nourish the world’s population while protecting the planet in the process. What we love about the podcast is that it provided a platform for two individuals—one in his teens, the other some four decades older—to interact as equals on matters of common concern and true consequence!
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Good People Talk Podcast Series
In Israel, Empowering Teenage Girls At-Risk
Good People Funds, Glenn Rosenkrantz--a journalist with more than a quarter century of global media. strategic communications, and public relations experience--speaks with Kaima’s Merav Carmi. Merav is the Co-founder and CEO of Kaima Nahalal, our network farm created by and for girls and women in Israel’s northern Jezreel Valley.
News Archives
Anchored in the Earth: A Kaima Initiative
Veteran journalist Abigail Klein Leichman reports on how Kaima is applying its flagship therapeutic farming model for at-risk youth to the "Anchored in the Earth" program, helping IDF combat veterans struggling with trauma through twice-weekly agricultural work at the Bein Hatlamim farm near Pardes Hanna.
Jerusalem Post
30 January 2026 READ MORE (English)
Employment as Education: A "Working" Model
A prominent culinary journalist, Ronit Vered, visited us over the summer and wrote an insightful article about our Kaima’s intergenerational approach to building community, describing us as a small organic farm ”redefining what equality means” and referencing the "good things that can happen when people abandon some unwritten rules.”
Ha'aretz
23 July 2025 READ MORE (Hebrew)
Kaima embraces our ‘troublemaker’ moniker
“Kaima offers another path for youth who have dropped out of school and may just need a different, less standardized track to find their way in the world.”
Read about Dr. Nancy Strichman’s Times of Israel blog post on how Kaima’s model is helping to teach her Hebrew University’s Glocal graduate students.
Jerusalem Post